Facebook Says It Owns 'Book' 483
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the first-book dept.
from the first-book dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Facebook has sued a tiny start-up called Teachbook.com over the use of 'book' in its name. The start-up, which has two employees, aims to provide tools for teachers to manage their classrooms and share lesson plans and other resources. 'Effectively they're bombing a mosquito here, and we're not sure why they want to do that,' Teachbook.com co-director Greg Shrader told the Tribune. Facebook said its use of 'book' in its name is 'highly distinctive in the context of online communities and networking websites.' Facebook apparently is alleging that no other online 'network of people' can use the word 'book' in its name without violating its trademark."
Where is diaspora already?! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:uh what about this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I don't think that TheFaceBook has much of a case, particularly as 'Phone Book' would seem to be their 'root' concept.
From Wikipedia:
The original concept for Facebook was borrowed from a product produced by Zuckerberg's prep school Phillips Exeter Academy, which for decades published and distributed a printed manual of all students and faculty, unofficially called the "face book".
Bloody hypocrites..
Re:You Fail (Score:4, Interesting)
With FrostyPiss as a nickname...good possibility. I thought the same thing.
Re:Give Me A Break! (Score:4, Interesting)
And here I thought the name facebook was based on the well known real world counter part: yearbook
Re:You Fail (Score:3, Interesting)
Why -book and not face-, or will the face- lawsuits be coming shortly?
All the other 'face-' sites are (supposedly) bukkake sites. Although you could view a 100-on-1 cumfest as 'social networking' it's hardly competition to the fuckfest that Facebook is...
Besides, trademark only protects the exact name and alternate spellings that are so close they might be confused. So 'vasebook' is out of the question if you want to start a site about vases...
But at some point corporations lawyers decided they *own* regular words used by them, books, apples, you, me, I, etc. it's a long stretch to fall under trademarks, but it's not about right-of-law, it's about right-of-most-cash.
Re:Facebook is in the right here (Score:3, Interesting)
I know others have said it but I want to say it again: Facebook is right.
Um, no.
How about a car analogy? General Motors cannot sue Tesla Motors or Bentley Motors for using the term "Motors" in their name, despite being in the same class of industry. Nor can Mitsubishi Electric sue General Electric for using the term "Electric" in their name, despite being in the same class of industry.
Now they may sound half similar but people won't confuse them just like they won't confuse facebook, fuckbook, teachbook, or any other *book website that happens to be somehow in realm of social-networking. If it involved people collaborating online, it's arguably social networking - it's just too broad a category for one douchbag company to own.
Re:Give Me A Break! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cookbook (Score:3, Interesting)
There go my plans for fuckbook where you can find new friends to screw and play fuckville and fuckwars.
Well screw 'em Facebook can't have an account. The fuckers.
Umm... They already have that:
http://www.fuckbook.com/ [fuckbook.com]
Re:A few more they could go after (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A few more they could go after (Score:3, Interesting)
When I first heard "teachbook", I thought about teachers teaching from books. See also "das Lehrbuch" in German.
Re:Books.com - Barnse and Noble 1992 (Score:2, Interesting)
And what's to prevent B&N from using book.com as a social network for book lovers? It's not like facebook isn't also a generic term before facebook.com was created. Facebook doesn't have a leg to stand on.
You'll send a C&D, I'll tell you to take me to court or STFU. That's SOP for anyone in a domain name dispute, which is what this is. Nobody can mistake teachbook with facebook. For one thing, teachbook sounds like a place for people with a bit of an education.
Remember how Microsoft settled the Lindows case when the judge was indicating that he would find that Windows didn't enjoy copyright protection because it was a generic term. Same situation with facebook - it was already a generic term for yearbooks, so facebook's trademark is invalid.
Re:Give Me A Break! (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._Lindows [wikipedia.org]
Facebook, being a generic term BEFORE facebook.com used it, does not enjoy the same trademark protections as a "made-up" term, which is why trademark lawyers will tell you NOT to use an existing word. Xerox == made up == good trademark. Pepsi-cola == made up == good trademark. Apple == generic == not so good (as Apple Computer found out in their lawsuit with Apple Records, even though they were in completely different fields at the time - and had to be revisited yet again when Apple started selling music), Facebook == generic == not so good. Google == fairly good because, fortunately, they mis-spelled the word googol (1 followed by 100 zeroes).
Re:My new website -- PlaceBook (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Give Me A Break! (Score:2, Interesting)
There is no problem with perception, no one is going to confuse the two. If you read the site description they are barely even pushing the "social" aspect. Go to the website, except for the name there is no similarity. I think it would be an incredibly bad precedent to basically allow a company to trademark a regex. What is next? Is youtube going to sue teachertube?
Re:Give Me A Break! (Score:3, Interesting)
You may have a point. Then again Victoria's Secret sued people over Victoria and Secret separately, in the context of lingerie and apparel shops, and lost pretty much all of those cases.
I still think _BOOK is overly broad and their mark scope overreaches, but it's entirely possible the courts will see it your way. There will be plenty of discussion that _BOOK as in YEARBOOK or PICTURE BOOK are generic terms in broad usage.
I cam still hope that an over-reaching corporate dick that makes their living selling information about their users gets slapped down for being a bully.